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Invisible Visits

Black Middle-Class Women in the American Healthcare System

Tina K. Sacks

Examines how Black middle-class women use cultural capital skills, which are accrued largely through class status, to mitigate stereotype threats and racial and gender bias in healthcare settings

Places the contemporary experience of the Black middle class in a historical context

Tells the stories of African-American women in their own words

Invisible Visits

Black Middle-Class Women in the American Healthcare System

Tina K. Sacks

Description

Although the United States spends almost one-fifth of all its resources funding healthcare, the American system continues to be dogged by persistent inequities in the treatment of racial and ethnic minorities and women.ÂInvisible VisitsÂanalyzes how middle-class Black women navigate the complexities of dealing with doctors in this environment. It challenges the idea that race and gender discrimination-particularly in healthcare settings-is a thing of the past, and questions the persistent myth that discrimination only affects poor racial minorities. In so doing, the book expands our understanding of how Black middle-class women are treated when they go to the doctor, why they continue to face inequities in securing proper medical care, and what strategies they use to fight for the best treatment (as well as the consequential toll on their health). Drawing from original research, the author shines a light on how women perceive the persistently negative stereotypes that follow them into the exam room, and proceeds to illustrate why simply providing more cultural-competency or anti-bias training to doctors will not be enough to overcome the problem. For Americans to truly address these challenges, the deeply embedded discrimination in our prized institutions-including those in the healthcare sector-must be acknowledged.

Invisible Visits

Black Middle-Class Women in the American Healthcare System

Tina K. Sacks

Author Information

Tina K. Sacks, PhD, is an assistant professor in the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies racial and gender inequities in healthcare settings, social determinants of health, and poverty and inequality. Professor Sacks' work has been published in Race and Social Problems, Health Affairs, and MSNBC News. Professor Sacks also frequently collaborates with the photographer and filmmaker Carlos Javier Ortiz on documentary film projects about issues affecting Black and Latino communities in the US and abroad. Their films have appeared in the Tribeca, AFI, and LA International Film Festivals, among others. Their work has also been published in The New Yorker and The Atlantic.

Invisible Visits

Black Middle-Class Women in the American Healthcare System

Tina K. Sacks

Reviews and Awards

"Sacks (UC Berkeley) addresses an area of inquiry that has received scant attention in social science research: the racial and gender discrimination experienced by women of color navigating the US healthcare system... Such experiences can have a detrimental effect on the women's physical and mental health, and Sacks offers evidence for the health disparities in the US. The main points are well supported by interviews with patients and healthcare providers; this text is as much an ethnography as it is a sociological study. Ultimately, there is much in the book that readers will find surprising and insightful." -- C. Apt, CHOICE

"By examining the healthcare experiences of middle- and upper-class African-American women, Dr. Sacks adds to our basic understanding of the relationship between socioeconomic status, and health in cancer disparities. This distinguishes her volume unique and renders it a major contribution to disparities research." --Sarah Gehlert, PhD, Dean and University of South Carolina Distinguished Professor, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina; E. Desmond Lee Professor of Racial and Ethnic Diversity Emerita, Washington University in St. Louis; President, American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare

"In the precise domain in which Black women--and everyone--should expect to be treated with care and concern, they are instead greeted with stereotypes and disregard. After reading Invisible Visits, we might wonder if all of the mental and emotional energy that Black women expend in going to the doctor is actually making them sick. The book is essential reading for health care professionals and educators, and anyone interested in inequalities by race, class, and gender." --Mary Pattillo, PhD, Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, Northwestern University; Author of Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class

Invisible Visits

Black Middle-Class Women in the American Healthcare System

Tina K. Sacks

From Our Blog

Healthcare for black people seems to hover somewhere between willful neglect and overt malfeasance. We need only look to the ongoing lead poisoning disaster in Flint, Michigan, or the black maternal mortality crisis as examples.

By now, much has been written about the Serena Williams-Naomi Osaka-Carlos Ramos fiasco at the 2018 US Open. During the women's final, the umpire, Carlos Ramos, issued Williams a warning for suspected coaching from her player's box.